The
Commerce Department's first snapshot of first-quarter growth was
released just hours before the Federal Reserve wraps up a two-day policy
meeting.

While harsh
weather partially explains the weakness in growth, the magnitude of the
slowdown could complicate the U.S. central bank's message as it sets to
announce a further reduction in the amount of money it is pumping into
the economy through monthly bond purchases.

U.S. stock index futures fell slightly on the report, while U.S. Treasury debt prices trimmed losses. The
first-quarter stall in growth, however, is likely to be temporary and
recent data have suggested strength at the tail end of the quarter. Separately,
the ADP National Employment Report showed private employers added
220,000 jobs to their payrolls in April after increasing headcount by
209,000 in March...
Economists
estimate severe weather could have chopped off as much as 1.4
percentage points from GDP growth. The government, however, gave no
detailson the impact of the weather.

INVENTORY GROWTH DECELERATES

Businesses
restocked inventories to the tune of $111.7 billion in the final three
months of last year, but added only $87.4 billion more to stocks in the
first quarter, the smallest amount since the second quarter of 2013.

The slowdown in restocking subtracted 0.57 percentage point from GDPgrowth in the first quarter. Trade
also undercut growth, taking off 0.83 percentage point, partly because
of the weather, which left goods piling up at ports. Exports fell at a
7.6 percent rate in the first quarter, the largest decline in five
years, after growing at a 9.5 percent pace in the final three months of
2013.
Together,
inventories and trade sliced off 1.4 percentage points from GDP growth. A
measure of domestic demand that strips out exports and inventories
expanded at a 1.5 percent rate.

Consumer
spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic
activity, increased at a 3.0 percent rate, reflecting a spurt in
spending on services linked to demand for heating during the winter and
the Affordable Healthcare Act,which expanded health care coverage to
many Americans.
Spending on services grew at its quickest pace since the second quarter of 2000.

Spending
on goods, however, slowed sharply, indicating that the frigid
temperatures had reduced foot traffic to shopping malls. Consumer
spending had increased at a brisk 3.3 percent pace in the
fourth-quarter.

Harsh weather also undercut business spending on equipment. While investment in nonresidential structures, such as gas drilling, rebounded, the increase was minor. Business spending on equipment fell at its fastest pace in nearly five years.

A second
quarter of contraction in spending on home building suggests a housing
recession, which could raise some eyebrows at the U.S. central bank. A
bounce back is, however, expected in the April-June period."

"To see how easy it is for a dark money group to ignore the Internal
Revenue Service, look no further than the loftily named Government
Integrity Fund.

The Fund, an Ohio nonprofit, spent more than $1 million in 2012 on TV
ads attacking Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and praising his Republican
opponent, Josh Mandel. Now the Fund's tax return,
which ProPublica obtained from the IRS this week, indicates that the
group spent most of its money on politics — even though IRS rules say
nonprofits like the Fund aren't allowed to do that.

The Government Integrity Fund was founded in May 2011 and applied later that year for IRS recognition of its tax-exempt status, swearing under penalty of perjury that it would not engage in politics but would instead "promote the social welfare of the citizens of Ohio." Within two months, the IRS had recognized the group.

It then devoted much of its resources to backing Mandel's unsuccessful bid to unseat Brown. As previously detailed by ProPublica, the Fund was linked to a former top Mandel staffer.

The Fund's return highlights the ways such nonprofits, known as dark
money groups because they are not required to disclose their donors, can
skirt IRS rules designed to limit their political activities.

Such
groups are playing an increasingly prominent role in elections, spending
more than $256 million on election activity in 2012.

Dark money groups can spend money on politics as long as they can
persuade the IRS that their primary purpose is social welfare. This can
lead to quite creative accounting on tax forms, with groups describing
ads that should qualify as political under IRS rules as "education" or
"issue advocacy."

On the Government Integrity Fund's latest tax return — for 2012 — the group told the IRS it spent $5.2 million overall. Of that, $2 million went to two super PACs
— mostly the Fund's sister super PAC, the Government Integrity Fund
Action Network — which then used the money to pay for different ads than
the ones the Fund bought. According to the filing, this $2 million made
up all of the Fund's political spending in 2012.

But that didn't include an additional $1.08 million the Government
Integrity Fund spent on TV ads praising Mandel and attacking Brown in
the spring and summer of 2012, which ProPublica reported on in September 2012.
(The spending was tallied by Brown consultants. The lawyer listed on
the Fund's incorporation papers confirmed that the group spent more than
$1 million on the ads.)

If the Fund had categorized the additional money it spent on the ads
as political, almost 60 percent of its expenditures would have gone
toward elections — which would seem to violate IRS rules that say a social welfare nonprofit's primary purpose can't be politics.

"Josh Mandel served our country with two tours in Iraq," one ad said. "Now he's fighting for taxpayers, fighting for our future." Another slammed Brown,
contrasting his performance in 2012 with that of his younger self.
"Young Sherrod Brown voted more for Ohio," it said. "Today's Sherrod
Brown — he just votes the party line. Where did the young Sherrod go?"

The ads stopped short of telling people how to vote, but three
nonprofit experts who reviewed them for ProPublica said they all
qualified as election ads under IRS rules.

"There's no question," said Brian Galle, a Boston College associate
professor of law who has written about political activity by nonprofits.
"It's not even close. They're blatantly political advertisements."

The Fund now appears to be inactive. Its website
is no longer operating. The Fund's president, Thomas Norris, who signed
its tax return, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I think they existed solely to help Josh Mandel," said Justin Barasky, the Brown campaign's communications director, this week.

Unraveling what the Government Integrity Fund spent in 2012 wasn't
possible until recently because the group didn't file its tax returnuntil January
of this year, when it was two months overdue. The long wait highlights
one of the major problems with regulating dark money groups and their
spending: The IRS typically doesn't look at these groups until a tax
return is filed, often more than a year after an election has been
decided.

Even with the return in hand, several aspects of its operations remain confusing.

In one spot, the group says $4.6 million
of its $5.2 million in expenditures were made as grants "and similar
amounts paid." But it doesn't identify which groups received the grants,
as the IRS requires, or what the "similar amounts paid" might have gone
toward. At the end of the form, the group says only $1.1 million went toward grants
— again, without saying who received the grants — with the rest of the
$4.6 million going to its sister super PAC and what it classifies as
"public education."

The group offers no details on what the $1.5 million attributed to
education included — mathematically, though, it would have to include
the ads it bought related to the Brown-Mandel race. Experts scoffed at the idea that the ads qualified as education.

"There's no way you can claim these are education. If this is public
education, then everything is public education," said Donald Tobin, a
law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in the
intersection of tax and campaign finance law. "These are clearly
designed to be political ads to benefit or oppose a candidate. And
that's not social welfare activity."

The Fund attributes its remaining expenses mainly to fundraising fees paid to three companies.
No records could be found for two of the three companies. And,
according to the return, none of them raised any money for the group.

It's an open question how vigorously the IRS, which doesn't comment
on individual taxpayers like the Fund, will pursue groups for
irregularities. The agency has revoked the nonprofit status of only one
social welfare nonprofit, a liberal group, and its affiliates since the
Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 paved the way for dark
money groups to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into outside
election ads.

Experts on nonprofits say the IRS has taken an even more hands-off
approach since top officials admitted the agency had targeted
applications from conservative groups for extra scrutiny, sparking a
scandal and investigations.

The IRS has proposed new regulations to curtail political spending by social welfare nonprofits, but the agency has acknowledged that there's virtually no chance the regulations will be in place by this year's midterm election.

Comment: I'm aware that Pro Publica is a left wing group. They don't need to worry about the IRS "remaining committed" to its principles. Certainly the GOP Establishment doesn't want new voices popping up. The Ohio group sounds like it wasted a lot of money and what it did spend was a massive failure. Maybe they learned at the feet of Karl Rove.

Comment: Mr. Brennan takes issue with former Governor Palin's recent comments mocking terrorists. Mr. Brennan and apparently his superiors at National Review think this is a serious topic deserving of NRO time and space. The recent best thinking of National Review yielded a hugely expensive loss in the Hockey Stick lawsuit in Washington, DC. The case was basically over nothing, but National Review failed to assess the situation or the judge correctly. In any event, the Hockey Stick character is suing them again. Still basically over nothing, but that isn't what matters. National Review chose their attorneys, either suggested or agreed to their recommendations, and lost. CO2 isn't poison to begin with, and even if it were China controls it. Plenty of scientific data confirms this but millions of US taxpayer dollars are spent every day to "tackle" a non-existent problem that even the EPA says US actions can't fix. Maybe if National Review or NRO had been exposing this fraud daily for the past couple of decades the Hockey Stick never would've gained traction to begin with. Even today NRO doesn't see the seriousness of what they're up against and use their platform instead to attack Sarah Palin. Powers of reasoning have been lost. It would be best if the Hockey Stick lawsuits extracted the last dime of NRO and National Review as they exist today so they would be forced out of business. Sorry to say it. Susan. via Mark Levin show and Mark Levin twitter.

The military will get greater access to bases across the region as an effort by Washington to counter Chinese aggression. The presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue in the Philippines, a former American colony....

U.S.
Ambassador Philip Goldberg and Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire
Gazmin signed the agreement at the main military camp in the capital,
Manila, ahead of Obama's stop and portrayed it is as a central part of
his weeklong Asia trip.

The
Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement will give American forces
temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to
preposition fighter jets and ships.

The
deal was signed hours before Obama arrived in Manilaon the last leg of
a four-country Asian tour, following stops in Japan, South Korea and
Malaysia. Goldberg
said the agreement will 'promote peace and security in the region,' and
allow U.S. and Philippine forces to respond faster to disasters and
other contingencies.

It is not known how many additional U.S. troops would be deployed 'on temporary and rotational basis.'...

"Toyota is closing its Erlanger, Ky.
headquarterswhich means nearly 1,600 jobs from that facility will be
moving to Texas.The move was announced on Monday, April 28, but it's not expected to begin until 2017.

All of the jobs from its U.S. Headquarters in California will also be moving to Texas.

Toyota says the new headquarters will bring together employees who are now scattered around the country.

“Obviously, we are extremely disappointed by Toyota’s decision. We
would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss options with Toyota, but
we will now turn our attention to preparing for this transition.

We also are disappointed that the lives of hundreds of Kentuckians will
be disrupted, and we pledge to assist those families however we possibly
can. This transition will take two to three years to achieve, and
Toyota has assured us that the company plans to offer industry-leading
programs and packages to its people.

In the past 30 years, Toyota has invested approximately $6 billion in
Kentucky. And with 300 jobs moving from Erlanger to Georgetown and 750
new jobs being added to support production of the Lexus ES 350, there
will be some 8,200 Toyota employees in Kentucky after the move. The
Toyota officials have assured us that a continued strong presence in
Kentucky is central to Toyota’s ongoing success. Kentucky remains a powerful force in auto manufacturing, and we will do
everything possible to maintain and strengthen Kentucky's position as
one of the top states for the auto industry.”"

During
an interview on Fox News with host Sean Hannity and conservative pundit
Ann Coulter, Sharpton defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) in the wake of his racially insensitive comments that are
described in a new book titled, "Game Change." While defending Reid,
Sharpton said an alleged comment Clinton reportedly made was "far more
disturbing."

Sharpton told Hannity, "I think Bill Clinton said is something you
ought to be dealing with. I have said, and you know I said it, that that
was far more far disturbing and I think it was far more offensive [than
what Reid said.]"

Hannity said, "Well, what do you think he could have meant?"Sharpton said, "Well, that's what I want to know."

Later
in the interview, Sharpton, unsolicited, said, "Why aren't you all
talking about Bill Clinton? You know why? Because Bill Clinton is not in
charge of the Senate. He's not the one pushing healthcare [reform].
You're taking a statement [from Reid] you know is nowhere near what
Clinton is accused of saying and going after Reid for purely political
reasons.""

5. “Hillary’s opponent, in his entire campaign, every two or three
weeks has said for months and months and months, beginning in Nevada,
that really there wasn’t much difference in how America did when I was
presidentand how America’s done under President Bush. Now, if you
believe that, you should probably vote for him, but you get a very bad
grade in history.” — April 17, 2008, Lock Haven, Pa., campaign speech6. “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a
good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” — Jan. 26, 2008, to
reporters in Columbia, S.C.

7. “I mean, when’s the last time we elected a president based on one
year of service in the Senatebefore he started running? I mean, he will
have been a senator longer by the time he’s inaugurated, but
essentially once you start running for president full timeyou don’t
have time to do much else.” — Dec. 15, 2007, PBS’s “Charlie Rose”8. “Oh, I think yes.” – Dec. 20, 2011, Fox News, when asked if the media favored Barack Obama during the 2008 election."

Former
state Democratic Party head Dick Harpootlian, who worked for Bill
Clinton in 1992 but has endorsed Obama in the 2008 contest, told CNN
that the Clintons were engaged in a pattern ofdivisive commentsmeant
to "suppress the vote, demoralize voters and distort the record."

He said the tactics reminded him of the godfather of dirty campaigning, Republican Lee Atwater.

The
ex-President, whose staffers tried fruitlessly to pull him out of the
Charleston restaurant where he had been stumping for his wife, lost his
cool when asked about the Atwater comparison. "This is crazy. This
rhetoric is getting a little carried away," he told reporters. "I spent
all my life fighting those people."

Obama quickly accepted, saying "As far as I am concerned, the book is
closed." Reid, facing a tough re-election bid this year, spent the day
telephoning civil rights leaders and fellow Democrats in hopes of
mitigating the political damage.

The revelations about Reid's 2008 comments were included in
the book "Game Change" by Time Magazine's Mark Halperin and New York
magazine's John Heilemann. The behind-the-scenes look at the 2008
campaign that elevated Obama to the White House is based on the writers'
interviews with more than 200 sources, most of whom were granted
anonymity and thus much of the material could not be immediately
corroborated.

After new excerpts from the book appeared on the Web site of The
Atlantic, Reid released a statement expressing regret for "using such a
poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all
Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments."

Obama issued a statement saying he had spoken with Reid, who faces a
difficult re-election amid frustration from both liberals and
conservatives with his leadership in the Senate and his agenda....

Reid's office said he had also phoned to apologize to civil rights
leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton; NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights president and chief executive
officer Wade Henderson, as well as veteran political operative Donna
Brazile. Reid also spoke with Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Rep.
James Clyburn, D-S.C., both African-Americans.

The leaders quickly fell in line supporting Reid. "While there is no question that Senator Reid did not select the best
word choice in this instance, these comments should not distract
America from its continued focus on securing healthcare or creating jobs
for its people," Sharpton said.

Clyburn, part of the House's Democratic leadership, also supported Reid despite the comments.

"Sen. Reid's apology for his private assessment of President Obama's
candidacy should be accepted and our time and energy should be devoted
to helping him overcome current obstacles to job creation, health care
reform and energy independence," Clyburn said. Aides to Obama, the Clintons and Biden declined to discuss details of the book....

Reid apologized for the comments, which were in Game Change. Mainstream
media journalist Marc Ambinder was the first to uncover Reid's remarks
in the book when he discovered an early copy of the book at a D.C. book
store. Ambinder published the excerpt below in 2010.:...

"He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the
country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially
one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro
dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately. Reid was
convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him
in a bid for the Democratic nomination."

"U.S. Senate hopeful Joni Ernstwould bring Iowa's values to
Washington, D.C., and is unlike any lawmaker the nation's capital has
seen, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said at a political rally Sunday.

Palin was one of manywomen in politics to attend the "Heels On,
Gloves Off!" event to support Ernst, a Republican state senator. Others
who attended the rally included U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., former
Nebraska Gov. Kay Orr and Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Ernst is one of five candidates vying for the GOP nomination for the
U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Harkin, a long-serving
Democrat. The primary is June 3.

If elected in November, she would be the first woman to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate.

Fischer, the first woman from Nebraska to be elected to the U.S.
Senate, said she needs Ernst's presence to move forward with
conservative values at the national level, such as a free market and a
belief in strong families and communities."She will help me in the U.S. Senate to promote those values, to
promote those principles and those strengths that we have as a country,"
Fischer said. "She will help to restore America."

"They just had better not underestimate this gal from flyover country," Palin said. "She's a patriot. She's a fighter."

Ernst, who earned her Iowa senate seat in a special election in 2011
and was re-elected in 2012, echoed Palin's and Fischer's comments,
pledging to bring Iowa values and conservative principles with her if
elected.

"I would be honored to serve as Iowa's first elected female ... We're
going to take Iowa values out to Washington, D.C.," Ernst said.

"Mrs. Ernst is running against Mark Jacobs, Sam Clovis, Matt Whitaker and Scott Schaben in theJune 3 Republican primary
.The
winner will face off against Rep. Bruce Braley, who is fighting to
keep the seat in the hands of Democrats now that Sen. Tom Harkin is set
to leave at the end of his term.

"A
six-year-old boy whose mother forced him into a dog cage then poured
syrup and kitty litter on him was rescued after neighbors heard him
screaming, 'Do you love me?' to his abuser, authorities said.

, and her long-term girlfriend, Sarah Elizabeth
McClain, 30, allegedly abused the boy - who has psychological issues and
does not like sticky substances - for two hours on Saturday. Neighbors
witnessed the treatment and alerted authorities.

The two women, from Douglasville, Georgia, appeared in front of a Douglas County Magistrate on Thursday, where they were both charged with cruelty to children.

They
allegedly forced the boy into a small crate, covered his feet and hands
with syrup and kitty litter and also made him hold a brick above his
head for 15 minutes, police told the Douglas County Sentinel.

Hostetter carried out the treatment
to punish her son and told cops she poured syrup on him because she knew
he did not like it, Douglasville Police Sgt. Todd Garner said.'He
acts out based on the things that they have diagnosed him with and she
doesn't like that so she has issued these forms of punishment,' Garner
said.

'She has also gone to the point of taking his bed out and making
him sleep on the floor because he slept on the floor one night. So she
said, "If you don't like your bed, you cannot have it".'

He added that the child is supposed to be on medication, but Hostetter has failed to collect them.

'He’s supposed to be on three different medications that
she has not filled or given him,' Garner said. 'In our conversation, I asked her, "You
just think that you know more than the doctors?" She said yes.'

According
to police, a neighbor witnessed the boy being abused on Saturday and
called the Department of Children and Family Services hotline, but when
they could not get through, they contacted the boy's school and police
were called.

When police arrived, they found the home covered in fleasfrom the couple's three cats.

Hostetter and McClain admitted to the
alleged crimes after a DFCS worker came to their home on Monday
evening, the County Sentinel reported.

The
youngster is now staying at the home with an adult caregiver, while the
women are being held without bond in the Douglas County jail.

"DynCorp, one of the largest corporations working in the government’s
army of private contractors, has long been known for corruption scandals
and a questionable performance record. But none of that seems to have
discouraged the U.S. government from awarding the company new contracts.

The State Department paid nearly $4 billion for projects to aid in
Afghan reconstruction from 2002 to 2013. $2.5 billion of that went to
DynCorp—69% of all the money awarded by the State Department over almost
the entire duration of the war.

The figures on DynCorp’s earnings come from a report
by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), an auditing
agency created by Congress to provide oversight on government spending
in Afghanistan.

According to theSIGAR report,
89% of State Department funding, $3.5 billion, went to supporting
large, so-called "rule-of-law" projects, like training and equipping the
Afghan police force. And that was DynCorp’s primary focus in
Afghanistan, too—although the firm also handled jobs like providing
bodyguards for Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai.

The list of DynCorp’s job responsibilities, particularly in counter-narcotics and training the Afghan police force,
gives a short rundown of some of the most difficult problems for the
U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But for all the billions the company has
received to resolve these problems, there has been precious little
progress. In the case of narcotics, it’s actually gotten worse in recent
years, with opium production reaching record highs in 2013.

By itself, that might not be so bad; there are plenty of private
companies that bring in public funds. The real problem with DynCorp is
the company’s well-documented history of corruption investigations and
subpar performance.

In July 2009, Forbes
wrote that “Dyncorp has emerged as one of the big winners of the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, which now generate 53% of Dyncorp’s $3.1
billion of annual revenue.” Not long after, the “big winner” was called
out in 2010 by the inspector general for Iraq for being unable, along
with the State Department, to account for $1 billion spent training the
Iraqi police force.

And that’s not even mentioning the allegations that
DynCorp employees procured child prostitutes to entertain Afghan
officials. It’s a claim that the company and State Department have both
denied, but was serious enough to prompt worried emails from an Afghan
politician asking that the story be kept secret.

The child prostitution story first publicly emerged through a diplomatic cable revealed by Wikileaks.

The document describes “a May 2009 meeting” in which “interior
minister Hanif Atmar expresse[d] deep concerns that lives could be in
danger if news leaked that foreign police trainers working for US
commercial contractor DynCorp hired ‘dancing boys’ to perform for them.”

The “dancing boys” story went away without causing too many problems
for DynCorp. But it wasn’t the first time the company had been
implicated in a sexual abuse case; an earlier incident inspired the
Hollywood movie “The Whistleblower.”
In that incident, a group of DynCorp employees working as peacekeepers
in Bosnia were accused of sex trafficking by a colleague. The
whistleblower, Kathryn Bolkovac, was fired by DynCorp after coming
forward to them with her report. She then successfully sued the company
in British court. Another DynCorp employee who worked in the Balkans
during the same period as Bolkovac filed a separate lawsuit against the
company. In his suit Ben Johnston claimed
he “witnessed coworkers and supervisors literally buying and selling
women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about
the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had
purchased.”

More recently, in 2013, Dyncorp was found to have done a subpar job
on a construction project for the Afghan National Army in Kunduz
province. The company and the American government eventually reached an
agreement after being investigated for the botched job in Afghanistan—an
agreement that saw Dyncorp receive nearly $70 million despite the
shoddy work.The head of SIGAR, John Sopko, said of the outcome:“That wasn’t a settlement, it was a mugging.”

Whether America ought to be outsourcing its foreign policy to
for-profit corporations is an issue that has been debated
elsewhere—probably not enough, but we won’t get into it here. The
immediate question is how a company with so many bad marks on its record
keeps getting bigger and bigger slices of the federal pie. DynCorp has
emerged as one of the only big winners in Afghanistan.

87% of all
contracts awarded by the State Department in Afghanistan went to only
five companies, with DynCorp being the biggest of the five. The
remaining 13% of contracts were split between another 766 recipients,
who received on average less than a million dollars each—a relative
pittance compared to the payout the top five received. That’s the kind
of structure—with the vast bulk of contracts going to a small group of
insider corporations—that can create accountability problems.

When the
same small group of big companies keeps getting the big contracts, it
can threaten the competitive advantage that’s one of the rationales
behind contracting out government work in the first place.

If
this is the point in the story where you’re shaking your head at the
strangeness and impenetrable stupidity of it all, this is the point
where I tell you: Forget it, Jake. It’s Afghanistan." via Free Rep.

"There have always been Rinos but it seems like there have been more
and more lately – and Republicans that started out by being “Tea Party”
candidates and have totally sold out their Conservative base, not to
mention the American people.

These RINOS also no longer care about the debt or the deficit and enjoy their earmarks as you can see here. Rush Limbaugh and others have tried to
figure out why we are being so thoroughly sold up the river by these
RINOS – especially at a time when these politicians should be going for
the gold – explaining how the country is failing, blocking everything
the Democrats come up with, defunding ridiculous things like Obamacare –
and just keeping the other party in check to save the country which is
why we voted them all into office in a historic wave in 2010 to begin
with.

Some explanations I’ve seen for Rino-Fever have included…

1. They’re doing what their donors want them to do (in the case of
immigration, they’re beholden to the US Chamber of Commerce and other
business groups).2. They were never Conservatives in the first place.3. They don’t understand that things like Obamacare and immigration
legislation (without already enforcing the laws on the books) is NOT a
popular position – even with many Democrats and independent voters, let
alone Conservatives.4. Rinos actually believe in big government and big government
spending. They just want to be the ones to run it. But they don’t oppose
it. (see a statement by Ted Cruz here).

5. They are career politicians so they won’t take stands on anything
“controversial” or might make them look bad in a Democrat candidate’s
advertisement.6. “Obama will do it anyway.” If they don’t vote the right way with
the Democrats, Obama will just impose another Executive Action anyway
and the outcome might be even worse.

Those are all reasonable explanations of the Rino-Fever sweeping
across the nation.However, I am convinced that there are currently two
even more important and overriding factors that control what they are
doing:

1. The NSA2. The IRS

If you had a political job which gave you incredible wealth and power
– and would set you up for life – and you knew you were constantly
being monitored by the government (which happens to be your political
enemy)would you go out on a limb and actually be true to your promises
and do what your voting base wanted? Of course not. You didn’t really
want to be Conservative in the first place and now there’s a HUGE
penalty for it by a lawless Federal Government. At any time, they can
expose your phone calls to your girlfriend, how many times you go to the
bar after work, the connection to a shady political donor, your medical
records, your list of donors, information from your IRS forms…

Why
would you NOT doing everything you needed to do to keep the Democrat
party happy?? Your main goals are not serving the public. You are
serving yourself – keeping your job, your money, your power, your family
intact, your secrets hidden.

So when you look at the handful of Conservatives who are not sell
outs – Cruz, Lee, Amash and others, what you have is politicians who do
NOT have skeletons that they are worried about being exposed. And that,
my friends, is why there are so few willing to stand up for the American
people – their futures are more important than ours. Being a
politician, by its very nature, means that you’ve made deals along the
way and have done things to move up the food chain. The only thing that
will ever stop this is TERM LIMITS.*

The Rinos know that there is a total lawlessness going on in the
country right now with the President and the Attorney General leading
the pack. We no longer have equal protection under the law. Laws can be
changed or waived for political donors – and enemies.

You can’t exactly blame the Rinos for thinking this way…the Federal
Government has been doing pretty much what it wants with no
accountability at all and with a lack of any push-back from Republicans.
They know they are being watched, spied on, monitored…There are examples of this everywhere.

Look at what they’ve seen…Right off the bat in 2008, you have an
Attorney General who dismissed charges against the New Black Panther
Party in the voter intimidation caseand continues to pick and choose
which laws he wants to enforce; Obama changes the Affordable Care Act
illegally over and over again; the IRS goes after Conservative groups
with no repercussions; the government uses eminent domain and the BLM to
take away land and property from certain groups of people – but not
others who pay be political donors of certain Senators; waivers are
given for the Affordable Care act for certain groups of people but not
others; a White House kill list without due process; Congressional
Obamacare subsidies; implementing the Dream Act without legislation;
changing welfare work rules without legislation; war in Libya without
Congressional Authorization; collecting bulk data from Americans’ cell
phones; appointing people to the NLRB while the Senate was in session; suing Arizona over their immigration enforcement; not enforcing federal
marijuana drug laws; asserting executive privilege over Fast and
Furious documents…the list goes on and on. We all see it every day and
so do the Rinos.

So our House leader who is looking more and more like a clueless
muttonhead is on a path to not onlyNOT win the Senate,but possibly
lose the House. The Democrats certainly have nothing to run on but the
Rinos can certainly alienate their base into not showing up because of muttonhead public reaction to Conservatives.
That’s why primaries are SO important so that Rinos can be voted out.

"Clay Bennett, cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, is
well known for being one of the worst political commentators in the
entire country. The only reason you may not have heard of him is
because he’s not quite bad enough to be on MSNBC yet.

Grabbing his pen and ink, he decided to do away with what the Left
holds so dear: their pretend respect for African Americans. Bennett was
determined to voice his outrage. And to him, who better than to attack
than Clarence Thomas, the only African American on the Supreme Court?

But Bennett wasn’t drawing to praise the fact that a black man could
face adversity and still rise to the highest court in the United States.
No, instead Bennett aimed to mock Thomas for his race, declaring that
solely because of the color of his skin, Thomas was himself an “argument
against affirmative action.”

Obviously an insult and completely classless,the point of the
cartoon would have been made if Thomas was holding his name
right-side-up, like Sotomayor. But for whatever reason, that portrayal
was not enough for Bennett.
Instead, Thomas had to hold his name upside-down. Get it? Because
he can’t read! How hilarious, Mr. Bennett! Portraying a Supreme Court
member as illiterate and an argument against affirmative action solely on the basis of his skin color.I’m sure the Pulitzer is in the mailas we speak." via Free Rep.

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment and
frustration with the process and outcome of the government approval
meetings in Berlin this past week, at which the assembled
representatives from the world’s governments, considered and, in effect,
fundamentally revised or rejected parts of the Summary for Policymakers
(SPM) of IPCC Working Group 3 over a period of five long days (and
nights). My focus in this letter is exclusively on one section of the
SPM, namely SPM.5.2, International Cooperation. I am not representing
nor referring to any other parts of the SPM.

Also, none of what I have to say should be taken as reflecting
negatively on you (the Co-Chairs of Working Group 3), the WG 3 Technical
Support Unit (TSU), nor the overall leadership of the IPCC....

I fully understand that the government representatives were seeking
to meet their own responsibilities toward their respective governments
by upholding their countries’ interests, but in some cases this turned
out to be problematic for the scientific integrity of the IPCC Summary
for Policymakers. Such involvement — and sometimes interference — with
the scientific process of the IPCC was particularly severe in section
SPM.5.2 on international cooperation. It is to that section of the SPM
that I now turn.

In the early morning of Monday, April 7, 2014, a draft of SPM.5.2 was
completed and approved by the assembled team of CLAs in Berlin. The
draft, a copy of which is attached as Item A,
had been extensively revised over the preceding monthsin response to
comments received from governments around the world (to whom multiple
drafts had been sent as part of the normal IPCC process). The draft inItem A was sent to governments on April 7th through the IPCC’s PaperSmart system.

The plenary session of government representatives turned their
attention to SPM.5.2 at approximately 10:00 pm on Friday, April 11th.
When it became clear that the country delegates were unwilling to move
forward with the consideration of the text in plenary, you established a
contact group to work on acceptable text. You gave the group 2 hours
to come up with acceptable text. That group began its work at
approximately 11:00 pm (and continued past 1:00 am on Saturday, April 12th).

The contact group included representatives from of a diverse set of
countries, ranging from small to large, and from poor to rich. Hence, I
do not believe that the responsibility for the problems that
arose are attributable to any specific country or even set of
countries. On the contrary, nearly all delegates in the meeting
demonstrated the same perspective and approach, namely that any text
that was considered inconsistent with their interests and positions in
multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable. In fact, several
(perhaps the majority) of the country representatives in the SPM.5.2
contact group identified themselves as negotiators in the UNFCCC
negotiations. To ask these experienced UNFCCC negotiators to approve
text that critically assessed the scholarly literature on which they
themselves are the interested parties, created an irreconcilable
conflict of interest.Thus, the country representatives were placed in
an awkward and problematic position by the nature of the process.

Over the course of the two hours of the contact group deliberations,
it became clear that the only way the assembled government
representatives would approve text for SPM.5.2 was essentially to remove
all “controversial” text (that is, text that was uncomfortable for any
one individual government), which meant deleting almost 75% of the text, including nearly all explications and examples under the bolded
headings. In more than one instance, specific examples or sentences were
removed at the will of only one or two countries, because under IPCC
rules, the dissent of one country is sufficient to grind the entire
approval process to a halt unless and until that country can be
appeased.

I understand that country representatives were only doing their job,
so I do not implicate them personally; however, the process the IPCC
followed resulted in a process that built political credibility by
sacrificing scientific integrity. The final version of SPM.5.2, as
agreed to by the contact group, and subsequently approved in plenary (at
approximately 3:00 am, April 12th), is attached to this letter asItem B.

No institution can be all things for all people, and this includes
the IPCC. In particular, in the case of the IPCC’s review of research
findings on international cooperation, there may be an inescapable
conflict between scientific integrity and political credibility. If the
IPCC is to continue to survey scholarship on international cooperation
in future assessment reports, it should not put country representatives
in the uncomfortable and fundamentally untenable position of reviewing
text in order to give it their unanimous approval. Likewise, the IPCC
should not ask lead authors to volunteer enormous amounts of their time
over multi-year periods to carry outwork that will inevitably be
rejected by governments in the Summary for Policymakers.

I hope I have made it clear that my purpose is not to condemn the
country representatives, the IPCC leadership, the TSU, the Lead Authors,
or the Coordinating Lead Authors. The problem is structural, not
personal. In my view,with the current structure and norms, it will be
exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to produce a scientifically
sound and complete version of text for the SPM on international
cooperation that can survive the country approval process.More broadly, I urge the IPCC to direct public attention to the
documents produced by the lead authors that were subject to government
(and expert) comment, but not subject to government approval.
I believe that tremendous public good would arise from publicizing the
key findings of the Technical Summary and the individual chapter
Executive Summaries, instead of the Summary for Policymakers....

Best wishes,

Rob

Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business & Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Edenhofer, 11/14/10: ""But one must say clearly: We distribute by climate policy de facto the world's wealth around....This has to do with environmental policy... almost nothing....The climate summit in Cancun end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War."...

"Climate protection has hardly anything to do with environmental protection,says the economist Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which it relates to the distribution of resources."....